UN Security Council condemns Sudan drone strike that killed dozens at Abyei market

A drone strike on a crowded livestock market in Abyei, the disputed border territory between Sudan and South Sudan, has killed more than 80 people and left dozens more missing, according to the United Nations peacekeeping force that has patrolled the area since 2011. The Oct. 19 attack hit Amiet Market and the nearby area of Todach, about 15 kilometers from Abyei town, and local and medical sources cited by Al Jazeera put the death toll at 153 or higher, with the final count still being verified days later as search teams worked through the wreckage.

The UN Security Council condemned the strike in the strongest terms on Oct. 23, warning that deliberately targeting civilians could amount to a war crime under international humanitarian law and demanding a full, transparent and prompt investigation to identify those responsible. Abyei has been administered as a demilitarized buffer zone free of regular Sudanese and South Sudanese forces since a 2011 agreement that left the oil-producing region's final status unresolved between rival Ngok Dinka and Misseriya communities, precisely to prevent the kind of spillover violence the market attack now threatens.

The strike is one entry in a far larger tally. UN human rights chief Volker Turk said this week that drone strikes across Sudan killed at least 306 civilians and injured hundreds more in just the first three weeks of October, hitting homes, markets, hospitals, displacement camps and power and water infrastructure in Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile states. Both Sudan's army and the rival Rapid Support Forces paramilitary, locked in a civil war since April 2023, have increasingly turned to armed drones to strike far beyond the front lines, with the UN renewing its call for both armies to commit to a ceasefire and for outside states to stop the flow of weapons fueling the war.